Cable360AM — News briefing for Tuesday, Oct. 30 »

BitTorrent president and CEO Ashwin Navin confirmed details of Comcast‘s limits on peer-to-peer file-sharing. "We have verified that in certain geographies that Comcast will send what’s called a connection reset packet to BitTorrent users if they’re uploading and sharing for long periods of time," Navin told Ohio University’s The Post. "And in fact, it’s if they’re uploading for a significant period of time longer than they’re downloading." He also said the network architecture of Comcast.net isn’t designed to accommodate P2P activity. "The way the networks have been implemented are in direct conflict with all of those trends and ISPs are going to face some scaling problems as applications evolve that tax those connections," Navin said. "So what you see between BitTorrent and Comcast is actually a symptom of a larger problem."

The FCC‘s planned dismantling (at tomorrow’s open commission meeting) of exclusive contracts between cable operators and apartment-building owners will "have little immediate impact on the marketplace," writes the Wall Street Journal.

The entertainment industry is bracing for a strike as representatives for the studios and the Writer’s Guild of America meet today with a third party — a federal mediator — in a bid to resolve their differences before the WGA’s current contract expires tomorrow at midnight. [More: Variety | AP | Los Angeles Times]

Google is close to unveiling a suite of wireless applications and services, and poised "to kick off an intense debate about the future shape of the cellphone industry," reports the Wall Street Channel.

As speculation mounts over his exit plans, Time Warner chairman and CEO Richard Parsons is in India today, where he will address the Fortune Global Forum, an annual high-level meeting of Time Inc.’s flagship Fortune magazine.

With a friendship dating back to his days running MTV, former Viacom CEO Tom Freston was tapped as chairman of the board of Bono’s U.S. based philanthropic arms, with the African-aid efforts ONE Campaign and DATA yesterday merged into a single U.S. organization called ONE, reports Reuters.

BBC Worldwide will launch two VOD channels, BBC Lifestyle on Demand and the CBeebies children’s channel, next year to its U.S. affiliates carrying BBC America, reports Variety. It’s also launching BBC America HD in the new year and has two more VOD channels slated for the U.S., as The Guardian reported yesterday.

CNN will open a virtual news burea in Second Life, where virtual 3-D "citizen journalists" will be trained to file online video reports that may be used on air, reports Mediaweek. NBC’s The Office last week incorporated a Second Life storyline; Information Week has more.

Comcast added 36 networks in the Carmel, CA, area, including nine HD channels: A&E, ESPN2, Food Network, HGTV, MHD, MOJO, National Geographic Channel, Starz and TNT.

DirecTV‘s 100-HD-channel race is featured in Variety.

FEARnet celebrates its first birthday this week with its first original movie, Catacombs, starring Alecia Moore (aka Pink) and an original online series, Buried Alive. "We view Halloween as our Super Bowl," Diane Robina, president of Comcast Emerging Networks, tells the Philadelphia Inquirer.

Lifetime signed Annie Potts to co-star with Hairspray‘s Nikki Blonsky in Queen Sized, an original movie airing Jan. 5.

NBC Universal CEO Jeff Zucker yesterday knocked the company’s online downloading deal with Apple‘s iTunes in a Q&A with the New Yorker‘s Ken Auletta held by the Newhouse School of Public Communications. Zucker called Apple’s pricing inflexible and was irked NBCU couldn’t get a cut of iPod sales, commenting, "Apple sold millions of dollars worth of hardware off the back of our content." He also said the former partnership netted NBCU "just" $15 million in revenue despite accounting for 40% of iTunes’ video sales. [Variety | Financial Times | Jupiter]

Nickelodeon digital television EVP/GM Tom Ascheim is leaving to become CEO of Newsweek.

Oxygen will premiere Gangsta’s Paradise, a reality series about rapper Coolio’s life as a single dad to six teens, in the 2nd quarter of ’08.

SOAPnet EVP/GM Deborah Blackwell has stepped down but will stay on as a consultant through the new year to help with the channel’s transition to Brian Frons, president of daytime for Disney-ABC Television Group, who will assume her duties. Blackwell told Variety she’s hoping to stay in cable but is weighing digital media.

USA and SCI FI are shelling out $20 million for the rights to a package of Lionsgate movies including Saw II, 3:10 to Yuma, Crank, Chaos and Good Luck Chuck, reports Variety. Crank and Chaos become available to USA and Sci Fi in 2009, with the other titles premiering in 2010 and beyond.

Schematic and Ball State University partnered on a "next generation media insight center" in New York.

Qwest cut its 2007 earnings outlook and EBITDA forecast for the year, reports Reuters.


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